One of the biggest issues I see in stories are authors who simply rush the story too much. Again, I do believe some of this comes from the myths we often hear about the hero and heroine having to get together in a set number of pages or chapters. While page count and word count does come into play, this is not what we need to be looking at.
A while ago, I posted a link to Mark Knapp's Relationship model.
I always like to go back to this when we talk about the romance genre. It simply takes time to get those characters together and really growing in a relationship. The thought of immediately falling in love with a person simply does not happen.
Too often writers have their characters immediately becoming overly attracted to each other before they even get a chance to know the other person's name. While this approach might get that story moving and get the readers to "the good stuff" in the story, it does not come across as being truly believable.
There is nothing wrong with having your characters look across a room and finding someone "good looking" but taking it too far is just not going to work.
I am currently working with an author on her latest project and we are taking a unique approach with the hero and heroine. They are aware of each other, but the real "interaction" is not happening until nearly chapter 4. This might seem like a long time, but as we have have read through the initial rough draft, things are flowing well.
Don't panic. I promise, there will be time for the characters to get to "the good stuff."
Scott, you'll never guess how the next story in the Pony book "series" I was plotting in my head this morning was going to start. . . Guess I'll have to rethink that!
ReplyDeleteOops! Previous comment is from me, Nancy. Blogspot doesn't always recognize me.
ReplyDeleteI always learn a lot from your posts. Thank you!
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